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EMPORIA GAZETTE Weekend PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING ✦ ✦ ✦ MAY 14 AND 15, 2016 FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1895 ✦ ✦ ✦ WWW.EMPORIAGAZETTE.COM Business offers unique spin By Cathryne Scharton [email protected] P inball wizards now have a place to practice their craft in Emporia Patrick Everett opened Game Cycle at 804 Sixth Street in October. The store is a buy, sell and trade game shop, but with a unique spin — Everett offers free games of pinball to customers.  When asked why he chooses to offer free games of pinball, Everett responded: “Because it’s something different. Game Cycle is always known to step outside of the box… Why? We are here to have fun.” He added it is also a way to give back to the public. Relationships with customers have been a top priority since the store first opened. “We spend a lot of extra money that most games stores don’t to give a better product to people,” Everett said. Currently the shop has eight vintage machines on display. All of the machines were purchased and refurbished by Everett’s repair team in Gardner. After spending about six months in the Gardner store, to make sure all the kinks are worked out, the pinball machines are sent out to other Game Cycle locations. Everett owns nine locations throughout Kansas and Nebraska. “We chose to open another store because GameStop closed down and we figured this was a good opportunity for us,” he said. Everett grew up in Chicago around pinball machines and arcades. He opened his first store in Ottawa in 2010 and had a little extra space so he made an arcade, which he ran for a year or two and then moved on to something else, selling all of his games. Everett has purchased 55 pinball machines since Oc- P H O T O S B Y C A T H R Y N E S C H A R T O N Please see Pinball, Page 3 COLLABORATION BENEFITS THOSE IN NEED By Jessie Wagoner [email protected] Collaboration to meet consumer needs is the goal of a new partnership between CrossWinds Counseling and Wellness and Corner House, Inc. “We had a situation where we were providing alcohol and drug services and Corner House was providing alcohol and drug services and it was really rather silly,” Brian Muench, LSCSW, Director of Clinical Services at CrossWinds said. “Why not just work together?” Working together isn’t new to the agencies, but the collaboration has recently grown. Consumers in need of alcohol and drug services can now contact either CrossWinds or Corner House for alcohol and drug evaluations. Regardless of which organization they contact, the evaluation and alcohol and drug services will be provided at Corner House. The collaboration makes sense to Corner House and CrossWinds, but the idea is new in the state of Kansas. “I don’t know that any other mental health center in the state is doing it this way,” Muench said. “So we are pretty excited that we are taking that leap of faith between both partners. We don’t have to compete with each other, we can help each other out.” “It seems to be a unique idea in the state of Kansas but I don’t understand that,” Good Evening Rod Shepherd, program director at Corner House said. “It seems so simple, we don’t have to make things hard.” Shepherd said the collaboration is beneficial to ensure that consumers receive the necessary alcohol and drug services as well as mental health services. “So many of the people that we see with substance use problems also have co-occurring mental health problems that we aren’t really trained to deal with,” Shepherd said. “So this is a perfect way for both of our facilities to get what they need and help our community.” Corner House has fre quently referred consumers to CrossWinds for mental health services; but Shepherd said many of those consumers never seemed to make it for their appointments. Having multiple providers or appointment locations appeared to be a barrier for consumers. The organizations have removed that barrier by having a CrossWinds staff member travel to Corner House to meet with them at that location. “This is about working together to make Emporia a better place to live,” Shepherd said. “Us working together is going to help an untold number of people who have fallen through the cracks before. We are sealing up the cracks.” For alcohol and drug services consumers can call Corner House at 342-3015 or CrossWinds at 343-2211.   RDA APPROVES CID APPLICATION By Cathryne Scharton [email protected] At Friday’s Rural Development Association meeting, members approved the Community Improvement District application for the Emporia Pavilions project. The project requests about $3 million in funding from a CID. The city of Emporia defines CID on the city website as, “A CID is a self-imposed additional sales tax collectible only at that location. It is a means to encourage private and public development without requiring taxpayers, businesses and others to aggressively subsidize the economic growth. It is different from a TIF and broader in scope.”  Currently, the Pavilions project only has one letter of intent from Hobby Lobby, but RDA President Kent Heermann feels confident once more things come into place, more retailers will show written interest.  “We reviewed the application for completeness and it seemed to meet all the requirements,” Heermann said. “When you get all the pieces put together, with the CID, with the TIF part of it, the community improvement district on the Pavilions project will make it much more marketable.”  Later this month the developers of the project, Emporia Land Development, LLC, will attend an International Council of Shopping Centers real estate convention to network with retailers who may be interested in coming to Emporia.